Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, and welcome to our 2017 EBACE press conference.

We are truly excited about this year’s edition of EBACE, where for the first time we are presenting a new interior configuration recently introduced on our FALCON 8X. The new interior features an entry lounge that can be easily converted into a certified crew rest for very long flights. It’s a very smart design, and is proving extremely popular among 8X customers.

I’ll return to the successful market introduction of our big new trijet in a few moments.

But first, I’d like to stress that despite the significant challenges before us we remain fully confident in the future of our industry and in the future of our civil aircraft business.

We have an excellent line of products, with more on the drawing board, and a quality of aftermarket service that is among the best in the industry. And we are reorganizing and reinventing the way we work so we can continue to lead and innovate once the business jet market rebounds, as it surely will.

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In the meantime we can rely on sales of our RAFALE fighter to help compensate for sluggish business jet sales. The RAFALE has scored three successes, including a 36 aircraft order from the Indian Air Force concluded last year. And the outlook for additional orders is good.

Military sales mean a lot to our company. They yield many of the technological breakthroughs that underlie the performance, efficiency and reliability of our FALCON Jets, and they give us the resources and resilience to weather downturns in the business jet market.

The last time we met, six months ago in Orlando, I remarked on the continued difficulties facing the industry. The situation today remains pretty much unchanged, with intense price cutting, depressed preowned aircraft prices and weak demand across much of the market.

However, we are seeing signs of improvement in a few areas, such as Northern Europe, the Russian zone and China. We are also seeing renewed activity in the U.S. in the aftermath of the Presidential Elections, especially for the FALCON 2000 line and the FALCON 900LX, which remains the industry benchmark for reliability, versatility and fuel economy in the 4,500 nm segment.

However, despite these encouraging signs there is still an important level of uncertainty in the U.S., notably with respect to fiscal reform. Doubt about future U.S. policies is also negatively impacting another important market, Mexico, while a third, Brazil remains hobbled by that country’s continuing government crisis.

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On the other hand, we’re beginning to see somewhat stronger demand in the second hand market. And this should eventually start impacting pre-owned aircraft pricing, and consequently, new aircraft sales.

The multi mission market is also offering new opportunities. The Japan Coast Guard recently placed an order for a fourth FALCON 2000 Maritime Surveillance Aircraft, after selecting this widebody twinjet for its maritime patrol requirements two years ago.

We see strong potential for further sales in this active market segment, for which the FALCON line, with its optimum combination of size, payload, range and low operating cost, is particularly well suited.

We are also poised to benefit from the considerable effort we have undertaken over the past few years to modernize our fleet and equip it with innovative new aircraft systems and options.

We expect our new FALCON 8X ultra long range trijet, which has experienced a flawless market introduction since its service entry last fall, to be a sales driver. The 8X provides customers with increased range and cabin volume and the broadest selection of cabin configurations available on any business jet.

In addition, it is even quieter than the FALCON 7X, the quietest executive jet on the market – an important consideration for the 14 hour-plus Asia to Europe flights for which the 8X was designed.

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And thanks to a long period of proving and feedback from the 7X and a month long world demonstration tour last year, the 8X also comes to market with fully mature systems and an exceptional level of operational reliability. Operational capability has also been reinforced with recent approvals to fly in severe crosswind conditions and to operate at London City Airport.

As of today, we have delivered FALCON 8X aircraft to customers in all the major business jet markets, and we’ll be handing over a first unit in Asia in the coming weeks. Deliveries continue to ramp up at a steady pace.

Another bright spot is the portfolio of major new equipment and service options now available to operators of the FALCON 8X and other new FALCON models.
One is our revolutionary FALCONEye Combined Vision System, the first head up display (HUD) system in business aviation to combine synthetic and enhanced vision capabilities in a single view. Almost all FALCON 8X customers have signed up to use the new FALCONEye HUD.

FALCON 8X operators can also opt for our FALCON Sphere II electronic flight bag solutions, which bring the industry closer than ever to the truly paperless cockpit. Plus our JetWave Ka-band antenna, which enables passengers to browse the internet, stream videos or videoconference anywhere in the world, over land or over water, as if they were in their office or at home.

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The FALCONEye and Ka-band broadband options are also available on the modernized FALCON 900LX that we introduced in Orlando and is on our static display here this week. The aircraft features a re-designed new cabin, with contemporary styling, passenger friendly ergonomics and the latest cabin systems.

Now I’d like to bring you up to date on the program that in many ways will mark a turning point in the history of the FALCON line, the all-new FALCON 5X ultra wide cabin twin.

Aircraft development continues to move forward in accordance with the revised Sivercrest development schedule, put in place to resolve the technical issues that Safran has identified.

We expect certifiable engines to be available by year end in order to start the flight test program shortly after.
We set the bar high on this big new twinjet, which represent a real breakthrough in terms of cabin comfort.

As announced previously, the future of the FALCON family will also ride on profound changes in our organizational structure intended to improve our reactivity, competitiveness and capacity for innovation and get the most out of our many unique strengths, including our dual civil/military design and production setup.

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Among the changes, we plan to shift some of our design and development and product support activities to the Bordeaux-Mérignac final assembly facility and to set up a brand new worldwide spare parts facility next to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. We also intend to further specialize our different production sites and speed up our transition to a fully digital enterprise.

We have already begun work on an initial new aircraft program that will benefit from these changes. We hope to be in a position to freeze the specs and decide on the definition of this new model by year’s end.

After years of striving and effort we think we are now where we wanted to be in terms of supporting our operators and optimizing the ownership experience, as testimony from our customers and numerous industry surveys can attest to. Whether it be service quality, spare parts availability or AOG performance, Dassault is now the reference.

We are extremely proud of this recognition from our customers and industry peers. But far from resting on our laurels, we intend to continue investing to expand our global product support and spares network and develop innovative new support services.

After opening a new spare parts center in Moscow, we recently signed up Aero Dienst of Vienna and Hawker Pacific Malaysia as new Authorized FALCON Support providers. We now have 15 parts depots, 51 support centers and over 100 field reps to support our worldwide fleet of more than 2,100 aircraft.

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We also continue striving to introduce innovative new support services. One recent example is FALCON Immersive Training, a new 3D tool intended to facilitate hands on training of FALCON maintenance engineers and technicians.

No innovation has been better received than our new portfolio of AOG services, FALCONResponse, with its first- of-a-kind alternate lift offering. Equipped with a pair of dedicated FALCON 900s, FALCONResponse has flown more than 300 missions since it was launched two years ago. More than 40% of FALCONResponse missions utilize the alternative lift offering.

Before concluding, I’d like to mention the fantastic response we received from our recent worldwide M&O seminars. The lively give and take and the enthusiasm shown by our FALCON operators were proof once again of the usefulness of these events, which allows customers to keep abreast of the latest developments in our FALCON product and service line.

I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have, but first let me turn it over to Olivier Villa for a more detailed look at FALCON Jet developments.